Translator’s note: There are several articles under this general heading, including two lengthy and historically descriptive entries by the jurist Boucher d’Argis. What is translated here is an unsigned continuation of one of those articles. It is important because of its robust advocacy of a reform in the French political system—a system powerfully shaped by the creation of royal intendants under Richelieu in the early seventeenth century—in the direction of stronger local government and administration. Proposals to strengthen the provincial estates had been made by the circle around the Duke of Burgundy under Louis XIV (Fénelon was its leading figure) and afterward by Mirabeau, Turgot, Necker, and others. A November 12, 1764, letter by Diderot to the publisher Le Breton complains that the latter had markedly censored this entry, indicating its topical sensitivity.

Intendants. Intendants and Commissioners assigned by His Majesty to the provinces and generalities of the realm . These are the magistrates the king sends out to the different parts of his realm to supervise everything that might be relevant to the administration of justice, police, and finance. In general, their aim is the maintenance of good order in the provinces that comprise their department, or what are called generalities , and the execution of commissions with which they are charged by His Majesty or by his council. This is why they hold the title of intendants of justice, police, and finance, and commissioners assigned to the generalities of the realm for the execution of His Majesty’s orders .

What are called generalities refers to the division that has been made of all the provinces of the realm into 31 departments, which form so many intendancies , and which have no relation to the division of the realm into governments or parlements . Beyond these 31 intendancies there are six more in the French colonies.

The intendant normally resides in the principal city of his department; but at least once a year he must make a tour around the cities and other places in his department, which is also divided into elections, or other seats that are subject to tax collection. M. Colbert made it a rule that they should make two tours a year, one across the whole generality, the other in one of the elections, on which they would make a detailed report to the controller-general, such that after a certain number of years they would have gained a detailed knowledge and prepared a report on each election, and as a consequence, on all the cities, villages, and other place that comprised their generality.

The intendants are almost always selected from among the maîtres des requêtes ; however, sometimes officers of the courts have fulfilled this function, as is currently the case of the intendants of Brittany and the Roussillon. In the past they have also been attached to the position of first president. Today, the intendancies of Aix and the Roussillon are filled by the first president of the parlement of Provence and of the superior council of the Roussillon.

[Two pages on the history of intendants since the time of Charlemagne follow to complete Boucher d’Argis’s original article. We pick up with the continuation, whose author remains unidentified.]

The authority of the intendants is, as can be seen, very extensive in pays d’élection , [1] since they alone decide on the allocation of taxes, the quantity and time of compulsory labor, the new commercial establishments, the distribution of troops in the different provincial locations, the price and apportionment of fodder granted to the men of war; since the purchases of foodstuffs to fill the king’s warehouse are made by their order and by their law; since it is they who preside over the raising of the militia and who resolve the difficulties that arise on that occasion; since it is by them that the ministry is informed on the condition of the provinces—their production, their markets, their burdens, their losses, their resources, etc.; since in fact, under the name intendants of justice, police, and finances, they cover virtually every aspect of administration.

Provincial estates are the best remedy for the disadvantages of a large monarchy. They are of the very essence of the monarchy, which requires not powers but intermediary bodies between the prince and the people. [2] The provincial estates do for the prince a part of what the prince’s officials would do, and although they take the place of the official, they are unwilling and unable to put themselves in the prince ’s place. At worst, this is what one might fear of the Estates General. [3]

The prince may be knowledgeable about the general order, the fundamental laws, his situation relative to the foreigner, the rights of his nation, etc.

But without the aid of the provincial estates, he can never know the wealth, the forces, the resources, what troops and taxes he can and should levy, etc.

In France, the king’s authority is nowhere more respected than in the pays d’état . In their august assemblies, it appears in all its splendor. It is the king who convokes and dismisses these assemblies; he names its president; he can exclude whom he wills; he is present through his agents. The limits of authority are never brought into question; only the choice of means to obey that authority is weighed, and it is usually the fastest means that are chosen. If the province is found to be in no position to pay the charges imposed upon it, it limits itself to representations, which are never more than an exposition of their present contribution, their past efforts, their current needs, their means, their zeal, and their respect. Whether the king perseveres in his will or whether he changes his will, all obey. The approbation that the notables who make up these estates offer to the prince’s demands serves to persuade the people that they were just and necessary; they have an interest in making the people obey promptly. More is given than in the pays d’élection , but it is given freely, voluntarily, with zeal, and everyone is content.

In the provinces enlightened by the constant discussion of public business, the taille on property has been established without difficulty; the barbarisms and injustices of the taille on persons are no longer known there. You don’t see collectors followed by bailiffs or soldiers spying to see if they can bring to light some rags that were left to a poor wretch to cover his children, and get him to sell them—rags that barely escaped the exactions of the previous year. You don’t see that multitude of fiscal officials who absorb a part of the taxes and tyrannize the people. There is only one general treasurer for the whole province; the collection is assigned, without remuneration, to officials appointed by the estates, or to municipal officials.

The private treasurers of the towns and villages have modest salaries; it is they who collect the taille that they are responsible for. Since it is on property, if there are delays, they do not risk losing their advances; they recover them without expense. Delays are rare, and the recoveries are almost always prompt.

In the pays d’état , you don’t see three hundred tax collectors, sheriffs, or mayors of a single province, groaning in prison for an entire year—and in many cases dying—for not having brought in the taille from their villages, which had been made insolvent. You don’t see a village whose territory yields 4000 pounds being charged 7000 pounds in taxes. The yeoman farmer is not afraid of enjoying the fruits of his labor and of appearing to increase his comfort; he knows that his additional payments will be exactly proportional to what he has acquired. He has no cause to corrupt or to sway a collector; he has no cause to plead at an election’s election, [4] before the intendant of the intendant in council.

The king does not tolerate losses in the pays d’état ; the province always furnishes exactly the sum required of it. The allocation, done equitably and always proportionally by wealth, does not overburden the comfortable farmer in order to relieve the unfortunate—who, however, is indemnified.

As for public works: the engineers, the contractors, the workers, the property taken away from private individuals—everything is paid for exactly and is levied without expense. No roads or bridges are built that are useful to only a few people; they are not slaves to an eternal and blind avarice.

If certain changes in the value of property or in commerce should occur, the whole province is informed, and the administration makes the necessary changes.

The different orders in the estates enlighten each other mutually. Since none of them have authority, they cannot oppress each other; they all discuss, and the king decrees. These assemblies produce men who are capable of public affairs. It was by arranging the election of the consuls of Aix and explicating the interests of Provence to the assembly that Cardinal de Janson became a celebrated diplomat. [5]

You can’t travel across the kingdom without perceiving the excellent administration of the estates and the pernicious administration of the pays d’élection . It is not necessary to ask questions, but only to look at the residents of the countryside, in order to know whether you’re in a pays d’état or a pays d’élection . What an endless resource these pays d’états are for the realm!

Compare what the king gets from Normandy with what he gets from Languedoc. These provinces are the same size, but the arid sands of the latter send more money to the royal treasury than the opulent pasture and fertile countryside of the former. What would these pays d’état be like if the king’s domains were leased out to and exploited by the estates themselves? That was the plan of the late Duke of Burgundy, [6] and to this plan he added a greater one, that of putting the entire realm into provincial estates.

If the realm has sudden and unforeseen needs that require a prompt remedy, it is from the pays d’état that the prince should expect this remedy. Despite its moors and its small size, Brittany gave a third more in tax contributions in the last war than vast and rich Normandy. [7] Provence, a sterile land, gave twice as much as the Dauphiné, a land abundant in every species of production.

Devastated by enemy armies and weighed down by the burdens of war, Provence proposes to levy and maintain an army of thirty thousand men at its own expense. Languedoc sends the Prince de Conti two thousand mules to enable him to profit from his victories and from his passage across the Alps. [8]

What I am saying is known to everyone, and abroad our Estates-run provinces have a reputation for opulence. They have more credit than the government; they have more than the king himself.

Let us remember that in the last war, Genoa would lend to the king only on Languedoc’s guaranty. [9]

There are intendants in these provinces. It is desirable for them always to be men who merely watch over it for the prince. It is desirable for them never to extend their authority, and for that authority to be greatly moderated in the pays d’élection .

1. Pays d’élection were those provinces in the old regime whose tax assessment and collection were conducted mainly by agents of the royal government ( élus ) rather than with the help of provincial estates, as in the pays d’état, on which, see below.

2. The reference is to Montesquieu’s idea in The Spirit of the Laws , 2.4.

3. The Estates General had not met since 1614; see Representatives for an argument in favor of convoking them. They would not meet again until Spring of 1789, when they would spearhead the French Revolution.

4. The play on words hinges on two distinct uses of “election,” the first meaning the boundaries of the royal jurisdiction, the second a tribunal that heard tax cases.

5. Toussaint de Forbin-Janson (1631–1713); becoming bishop of Marseille in 1662 involved him ex officio in the provincial estates of Provence.

6. The Duke of Burgundy was the grandson of Louis XIV. Heir to the throne, he was the center of an important reform movement before his sudden death in 1712. Fénelon was his best-known adviser; see his enormously popular and influential work Télémaque (1698). It was translated into English in the eighteenth century and then often republished as The Adventures of Telemachus.

7. The reference is to the War of the Austrian Succession, 1740–48.

8. Louis François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti (1717–76), whose command during the war included a stint in Piedmont.

9. Throughout the eighteenth century, the French monarchy was increasingly dependent upon estates, municipalities, and other corporate entities for lines of credit.